The Things I Like About Ralph Krueger

When the Edmonton Oilers decided to hire Ralph Krueger to replace Tom Renney as head coach, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, they knew Krueger better than any of the external candidates, and Krueger’s résumé was excellent (if unconventional). On the other hand, my preferred choice was Jon Cooper for a variety of reasons.

I still like Cooper, but I’ve been very impressed by Krueger so far.

He Communicates

Oilers fans have been blessed with excellent quotes in the head coaching position the last few years, and Krueger continues the trend. Craig MacTavish and Tom Renney both came across clearly and intelligently, while Pat Quinn’s fondness for references to Barbara Ann Scott and odd-ball comments like “sucking the hind banana” made his pressers outstanding to watch.

Ralph Krueger has a great gift for communicating his thoughts in an understandable way, one that’s obvious when he talks to the press and undoubtedly serves him well when he addresses his players. With the media he’s eloquent, upbeat, funny and understanding – everything that can be asked of a coach in that department. He also brings a different vocabulary than the traditional cliché-filled coach’s repertoire.

More than that, Krueger says smart things. He quotes scoring chances with regularity, talks about the need to remove emotion from the decision-making process, and can offer a compelling argument for any decision he’s made. Even when he makes decisions that some might disagree with, he has no problem offering valid reasons for making that choice.

Against L.A., Krueger pulled the goalie with 2:01 left and the Oilers on a power play. Against Calgary, he pulled Dubnyk with 1:52 left to give the Oilers a 6-on-5 advantage. Against Colorado, he did it with 2:25 left and the Oilers on the power play. Against Detroit, it was with 2:33 left and the Oilers on the power play. He’s going for the win, even at a greater risk of a (meaningless) empty net goal against, and that’s a positive.

Another thing I’ve noted is his penchant for odd combinations of forwards/defencemen. There was a shift against Calgary with the goalie pulled where he put out five forwards – Hall, Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle, Gagner and Yakupov with only Justin Schultz on defence. He’s used three forwards at times during four-on-four play, and used four forwards plus Schultz in five-on-five play in the third period with the team needing a goal.

The amount of difference pulling the goalie 30 seconds early or being willing to go with only one defenceman with the empty net makes is probably pretty small – we’re fiddling in the margins here – but a willingness to approach those situations with creativity marks Krueger as an outside the box thinker and a guy willing to do whatever he thinks is right whether or not it’s standard procedure for an NHL coach.

Trust In Ability, Not Experience

The Oilers’ most-used defenceman is Justin Schultz. Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins rank 1-2-3 in total ice-time up front, with Gagner and Yakupov ranked fourth and sixth, respectively. He’s benched Ryan Whitney when the defenceman struggled, he pulled Ryan Smyth from the lineup after an awful weekend (I think Smyth should be in the lineup most nights, but after taking so many bad penalties in a pair of frustrating games, pulling him was the right move), and he wouldn’t use an enforcer he knew to be a liability on the ice.

The bottom line: Krueger comes across as a smart guy doing everything he can to win. He doesn’t let tradition, emotion or convention get in the way of doing the things he believes to be right. And when he makes a decision, he’s very willing to explain exactly why he did what he did. There’s no such thing as a perfect coach, but the early indications seem to be that the Oilers got a good one in Krueger.

David, I hate to see a good cigar and a fine scotch go to waste so…….sit back and enjoy…

The Oilers brought Ryan Whitney in here to quarterback an adjusted-hybrid system that used set defensive plays and transitions combined in its core value approach, Ryan was a perfect fit and is still a top ten first pass breakout man.

Two years ago the NHS was introduced to the Oilers indirectly and unofficially online. The NewAge Hockey Systems philosophys began to seep into the Oilers game bit by bit. The NHS is the evolution of the adjusted-hybrid system into a 100% offensively catalyse possesion/transition style. This is done by eliminating set plays and focusing on 3 controlled transitons.

Ryan Whitney was having trouble adjusting his first decision within the first defensive zone transition out of our end, he is an elite first pass man who has developed hard to break NHL caliber habits that help him be elite and the adjustment brings his game down to human and exposes facets his passing normally nullifies. Ryan couldnt provide the consistant variable zone pressure needed to satisfy system requirments because of the way he sees the ice. His mistakes are magnified because of his past and our teams evolution away from his being the catalyst of our offense.

Ryan was not benched due to lack of effort or performance, it isnt his injurys any more than it was that last year, the Oilers organisation has a defined lack of integrity, these exact thoughts were offered on their site last year before we turfed the season by trying to do-initiate the fast break adjusted hybrid upon Ryans return, remember we had been winning consistantly using a different system the coaches chose based on the loss of Ryan and all the rookies we had, they chose a hybrid system that used a balance of set defensive and offensive plays for 60 mins, set plays that imitated a transitional system which is the type tht maximises our talent and skillsets, so we were having excellent sucess with Whitney not in the lineup and with Potter taking his place. Potter has an above average first long pass and can also consistantly use his mobility to pressure the puck straight up-ice to mix it up. Whitney needs to catalyse his play from behind the net and wait for the forwards to set up, we cannot do this anymore because Ralph wants his defence to put pressure on the forcheck .

Oilers managment was responsible for the devaluation of Ryan Whitney over two years, and it was done because they were disorganised and lacking a system that would help them win, they were trying to keep the adjusted-hybrid running hoping it would return them to the playoffs , Ryan was brought in for this specific task, however when our team was flooded with high end talent and skillsets its size dropped a tad and its truculence also dropped a notch or two like its experience level, unfortunately for the Oilers managment group the adjusted hybrid is best manned by veterans with moxy and patience, well now we found ourselves with the opposite roster men to what the system required and it showed in our ineffective attempts to make the system work, when Ryan was hurt we were forced out of the coaches comfort zone and we turned to a simpler system that did work for us, but remember this wasnt a tactical decision by the coaches that got us all the early wins last year— it was a bleedin fluke we even changed the system!! A combonation of Ryans injury and all the raw rookies made us stumble upon sucess.

We still dont have a suitable system and every time I try to discuss the issue online people refuse to go there, there are to many fans who arent interested in the coaching and system stuff to get much feedback and it takes a long time to post the volume of data to properly discuss the topic.

However that being said , I personally created the NewAge Hockey System with the Dynasty Oilers PP and Gretzkys on-ice managment of it as my template. I spent two years posting NHS data to the team on their site, eventually it began to sink in and was implemented in specific cases with tremendous sucess.

If we used the NHS Ryan would still be a usable system asset at the elite level, he is right now even in this adjusted-hybrid system, its the coaches who cannot bring him onto the right page, this is because they dont have the communication skills to get the job done. These clowns dont even have a structured system description or historical context of the sucessful systems the Dynasty team used. If I asked them what the equivilant to a hybrid was in their pro vocabulary they wouldnt be able to conceptualise the hybrid to give me an accurate answer. As soon as I say abandon all defensive structure and framework they panic and immediatly begin to cover and run. When I say statistical analysis is garbage and useless they turtle or fight back defending the money and resources they are wasting, when I offer Intuative Dynamic Analysis as a superior replacement to their statistical analysis they balk at me, when I show them that the NHS is verifiable with results and point out that statistical analysis is like working with a Vegas Bookie and that those analysis cannot ever be verified based on results they refuse to discuss it and turtle or run.

When I say the NHS can generate 40+ shots and 4+ goals per game it scares them but interests them, parts of the NHS have been implemented over the last two years, the NHS and my online campaign led the Oilers to hire DarkHorse Analytics so they could try to leap over my head and prove that they had the resources to illustrate how the NHS was more accurate then they were. They were wrong and Statistical analysis is a waste of time and money. I offered the entire system to the team and was treated horribly, my data was utilised but I was completely ignored officially by the team, they used NHS data and tactics and then acted as if they were just hockey tactics which they already had knowledge of, it was a joke.

Dont confuse Whitneys results this year, they are system generated. He is performing to his best levels, his coaches dont understand how their own system works well enough to properly utilise him, for gods sakes they cant even sort out their shooting tactics as per their o-zone entrys, they cant even provide puck support after the initial shots, these are symptoms of an inadequate system.

Ryan Smyth is a victim of the same system evolution and coaching inability to communicate properly. Ralph Krueger can deflect accountability via players forever if he chooses, but he will still be showing a lack of integrity through that action when his troubles are system based.

The fact is this friends, the adjusted-hybrid squeezes out about 25% more offense than a traditional hybrid like most NHL teams use, it does this through the blending of specicficly a fastbreak d-zone exit with a transitional o-zone entrance and there is no middleground, the coaches dont even understand their own system well enough to realise this. There is no more offense to be taken out of an adjusted-hybrid like Ralph is trying to use, he is doing exactly as Renney did and he is trying to tighten up the defense, first technically and now with more physicality, nothing is going to work because the adjusted hybrid is designed to stay close to a hybrid and then eke out 25% more offense over 60 mins for the competative win, there is no dominance invloved here because a traditional hybrid can easily put an adjusted hybrid into a system checkmate and vice versa, this means that the transitional aspect of the adjusted hybrid can easily be shut down by most team in the NHL today. We have a talent and skill laden team that is able to execute a system superior to the adjusted hybrid we are using and the coaches just dont have a system template that they consider superior, after all the adjusted hybrid was created by the Oilers and it is as close as they could get to reproducing the Dynast Oilers results as was humanly possible over 15 years with oodles of NHL braintrust involved, for the record Gretzky himself couldnt reproduce his own system execution — because he was a savant not a communicator his leadership was all on ice by example and direction where he could have tactile influence to even a tiney degree, the NHS teaches players how Wayne did this, it could teach Wayne how he did this.

I know how Gretzky thought the game and i am an Intuative communicator with a competative sports background, I have developed a system of playing hockey that is closer to Wayne Gretzkys cerebral tactical perspective than anything ever created to date. The NHS is and was tailormade for the Oilers. It could be implemented in one or two practices of games on the fly. I am also an ex-athlete that didnt exactly respect hockey players growing up in Hockey country and I crushed them all the time in all other sports and enjoyed it tremendously so my attitude is a bit abrasive when it comes to tolerating the elitist crap most hockey players including pros defend and spout off. I disregard hockey traditions and tactics because I hammered even the best athletes who were predominately hockey players as a young athlete because of their obvious and solidly coached into them limitations and weaknesses from a dynamic perspective, they were coached out of creativity so early by the time they were teens they couldnt think on their feet worth a spit.

If you are a dominant athlete and a leader It is hard to explain in words to people
how you can change an entire games outcome by utilising alternative tactics, by gently structuring game dynamics to favor your side, its called the “little things” that guys do, but really it is all dynamic situational managment, and has little to do with athletic ability it is more cerebral. many times I would do out of the norm things on the field or court to remove my opponents from their comfort zones and make them start to react dynamicly, weird things that arent usual to screw up their thought processes and to add unneeded facets to the dynamic, I tried to overload them mentally from the first minute on with my own focus being the last minute. The entire competition to me was one big dynamic chess board and my own actual contribution elite as it may have been was rarely the key to winning, I spread myself around as much as I could dynamicly and used my teammates as extensions of myself. This is what Gretzky did, and i know it because i was dominant, not competative but dominant. You cannot be dominant based on your own athletic skillset, ever.

For hockey people here is an example, during a game I would use my athleticism to push a specific defender to within 80% of busting him down but I wouldnt bust him down, I would let him off the hook thinking he had outplayed me, then I would revisit the same guy and take him to 80% of being beaten again and let him off the hook, then I would pick a teammate wose talent and skill level matched the amount needed to school the target and I would then use my own skillset to exert peripheral pressure on the play dynamics and I would then “talk” to my teammate and tell him when to bust his move on my signal, and seriously I would create the proper dynamic and exert enough peripheral pressure in the right places to weaken the targeted opponent even more as my teammate acted as my hand of god and smashed the opposition through the weakened hole in their dynamic action potential.

You see people I needed everyone to play a structured system to allow me to be the floater or the general and still execute my own system responsibilitys properly, and in all my years of competing I only ran into a few athletes with this ability actually I only remember one an elite football player named Palmer I played with. He was able to match me physically and mentally, and he was always bothered by knee issues at that. Methinks if he was consistantly 100% healthy he mayyy have outdone me.

The NHS already has some Oilers players who are students of the philosophys, I could name them easily because I can immediatly see their NHS influences as they initiate them on the ice. In fact if you read this last 3 paragraphs you should be able to identify the one Oiler leader most able to drag this team to a cup already because he is doing exactly as i described consistantly and has been for two years, two years of historicly documented NHS data influences being manifested on the ice by an individual is very easy to identify if the tactics are counter to tradition which the NHS is. In fact there are several individuals who have embraced this NHS system on the Oilers as per their on-ice performances and efforts and adjustments. If the coaches had any cojones and if managment had any cojones they would have already found the source of the NHS data which happens to be me, instead I was suppressed and banned from their site and the Oilers hired Darkhorse to counter my influences in an attempt to replicate my Intuative Analytic skillset, my bet is that even mentioning the NHS is a punishable offence. Statistical analysis is garbage and cannot be verified as being results based on any level whatso ever, it is like Snakeoil. The Oilers Hackathon is a blatant attempt by Darkhorse to scalp intuative analysts from cyberspace in an attempt to fill this void before their statistical analysisscam is exposed. Welcome to my world boys, I am notjust an Intuit which alone is extremely hard to find but i am an Intuit with a sports background, and ha ha ha not only an Ituit with a sports background i was ha ha ha the Most Outstanding athlete in my High School and coached 3 different athletic teams after school for 3 hrs+ 5 days a week for extra credits. There is no replicating this dynamic because the combonation of intangibles is ultra-rare. You want to hire an Intuative Analyst to help your team you want to hire me, if your team is a hockey team even more so because there is a unique special dynamic here, I NEVER played hockey at any organised level in fact I hate skating totally but I played every other sport imaginable, I was never exposed to hockey type coaching and brainwashing, so I seem to be in an interesting dynamic position where there is zero hockey coaching influencing me to any degree. Add the creation of the NHS to the package and I say my going rate is whatever the stats crooks get plus a game by game premium based on wins and losses, hell i will base all of my renumeration on wins and losses, why not.

If my approach and attitude seem odd this is normal as I am a visual thinker which is how I do what i can do. I am not a traditional thinker as most people are. I have no reverse gear and i ultra-focus, I dont ever visualise failure, it just isnt an necessary option if you plan on winning at everything you do. Competative dynamics are ALWAYS decided in the arena of competition by the men or women competing, coaches and systems and tactics all become secondary when battle is engaged. One man can catalyse the win every time, if the team believes in him and trusts him, one man can manifest victory against any opponent irregardless of skill or talent differential. It always takes a team to win but teams always need to have leaders and one type of leader is an Intuative leader like Gretzky was and like Steve Nash is.

The Oilers need to catalysearound this type of leader because they have 3 or 4 players who can provide this type of leadership and all are at different evolutionary points. One is a natural visual thinker by birth and several are learned visual thinkers who have developed the ability which IS TEACHABLE. soon the team dynamic will become clouded as their natural tendancies pull them to try to take the bull by the horns. These players need this ability to be delegated and utilised within the system immediatly. On most teams just one of them would naturally rise to the top quickly and definitively, but with so many we will end up having the wrong type of internal competition in the team dynamic if we dont begin to micro-manage these assets properly via system execution that provides tangible results, you see losing will make these types of players fall back on their individual strengths leading to a fracturing of the leadership dynamic. This group need to define its leader or leaders and it needs to see winning results soon or irrepairable damage will begin to affect the team dynamics.

We are blessed with a handfull of minds that can see the game in an elite manner, most teams are lucky to ever find just one. we do not currently have a system of play or coaches who can recognise and harness this immense asset. If we aquired the right superior system and the coaches bought in then we would be ok, but this adjusted hybrid is not good enough and the coaches dont have a better alternative either on paper or in their heads or we would be seeing it right now.

Ryan Whitney is a classic example of a one dimensional elite performer being asked to provide two dimensional support to a two dimensional system, and it just isnt going to work. This entire dynamic is the responsibility of the coaches and managment , Ryan has every right to be peeved at this blatant mismanagment so does MPS and several otherscaught in the evolutionary “system cross-fire” we are stuck in right now.

He has been as eloquent as Renney and MacT, but seems to do an even better job of expressing his knowledge of strategy and statistics – something I don’t remember hearing much from any coach. His ability to seemingly change the culture of the dressing room to one with expectations of success has been admirable, too. I hope he gets a solid chance to excel with this team, and that he gets the horses to succeed.

In all seriousness, our company had Ralph lined up for a motivational speaking engagement in January. The session fell through and I was very disappointed because I really wanted to meet him. You don’t often get to talk to elite-level coaches. I bet two minutes of Raplh’s time would have been very educational.

I like a lot of what Krueger brings and I respect how thoughtful and eloquent he is in public and so far on the Oil Change footage but there’s one more thing I need to see out of him before I’m fully behind him and that’s pure passion and raw emotion of just being pissed off when they play beyond awful. There are times when a kick to the rear works better than a sweet word and a consoling pat on the back and I think the best coaches know how to do the best combination of both.

I honestly feel he’s handled the lineup pretty poorly thus far. I do like how aggressive he is late in the game while trailing, I like how gets the talent on the ice for those clutch situations. But why are we ending up in those situations so frequently? Well in my opinion Krueger is setting the team up to fail during the first 58 minutes of the game. He seems unwilling to make the changes up front (talking about the top 6 not the bottom 6), even after finally changing the lines minutely he switched back to the struggling pairings one game later. It seems that as far as 5v5 play is concerned, Krueger has adopted the “if its broken, don’t fix it” attitude. You can talk about how injuries have impacted us thus far but those injuries have all occurred in the bottom 6, the positions that we don’t rely on for 5v5 scoring.

Now we often boast about how good our special teams are but recently its seems that the majority of our PP opportunities have been failing to even get shots on goal let alone actually scoring. With the way our team is being coached right now, if we don’t score 2-3 PP goals every night we are probably gonna be trailing at the end of the game and with two minutes left we will finally get to see Krueger’s “aggresive” coaching style.

No doubt Krueger is unconventional and NOT afraid to think and act outside the ” proverbial box”!

I like that he holds people to account, especially when they are playing outside the system. The fact that the two Ryans were benched sends a strong message to the entire team……..let just hope that he is uniform in his approach, and does not have any pet players.

He is working with what he has got as far as talent goes and I beleive that his “systems approach”……..puck pressure in all zones, will eventually yield results. This will also generate more turnovers but watching young guys fill in for pinching d-men is refreshing.

Nothing was more boring than watching Mac T’s system, although it did work sometimes.

I was on the Krueger bandwagon this summer because his name wasn’t Sutter. However its frustrating to watch the same problems that have plagued the Oilers in recent years continue plus some new ones.

The failure to win puck battles. Oilers loose too many puck battles in both zones and arn’t hard enough to loose pucks. There’s a lack of shots every game. Oilers don’t get the puck on net enough due to many turnovers and player setting up in the slot or side boards rather then going to the net is frustrating to watch nite after nite. There also seem to be times the Oilers are a firedrill in their own zone. Also too many pretty passes, neutral zone turnovers. With their lack of size they can’t generate enough chances in the offensive zone. Their first line is the only line that can generate chances off the cycle, The other lines are reduced then to getting chances off the rush, and teams trap the hell outta of us cause they know we don’t dump the puck and turnover the puck all night. The Oilers use to have a good counter attack and that’s missing too. Worse part there is no synergy with any line but the top line.

With Dubby this teams a 30th place team. I’m not sure if hiring Krueger over Sutter was the right move. This team needs a Red Foreman foot up its ars.

I was on the Krueger bandwagon this summer because his name wasn’t Sutter. However its frustrating to watch the same problems that have plagued the Oilers in recent years continue plus some new ones.

The failure to win puck battles. Oilers loose too many puck battles in both zones and arn’t hard enough to loose pucks. There’s a lack of shots every game. Oilers don’t get the puck on net enough due to many turnovers and player setting up in the slot or side boards rather then going to the net is frustrating to watch nite after nite. There also seem to be times the Oilers are a firedrill in their own zone. Also too many pretty passes, neutral zone turnovers. With their lack of size they can’t generate enough chances in the offensive zone. Their first line is the only line that can generate chances off the cycle, The other lines are reduced then to getting chances off the rush, and teams trap the hell outta of us cause they know we don’t dump the puck and turnover the puck all night. The Oilers use to have a good counter attack and that’s missing too. Worse part there is no synergy with any line but the top line.

Without Dubby this teams a 30th place team. I’m not sure if hiring Krueger over Sutter was the right move. This team needs a Red Foreman foot up its ars.

Well I guess Ralph is open to observational analysis seeing as he is the Head Coach.

We came out this year playing a basic system that was catalysed by fastbreak dumpins, this didnt work. We adjusted our defensive zone exits because we were bleeding there. Then we recognised that we needed to better recognise and react in the Neutral zone so we adjusted that. This in effect changed two of Ralphs core values systemwise right off the bat we already reset our defensive and neutral zone tactics to reflect a new and better transitional style, we were still stuck on 2 transitions working with the 3rd cylinder seized.Then we came to the stark realisation that we werent getting enough shots so we adjusted our o-zone entrys from a fast break with the wee dump-in to a more controlled transition, and WHA-LA we finally embraced the only system that has given us positive results since Mac-Ts similar system when we went on the near miss run to the Finals. Suddenly we were getting shots and lots of them but something was still wrong— we werent scoring goals, the shots were there but we werent scoring. Our reaction was to begin to change our bottom 6 players instead of diagnosing the real problem within our execution. Then we got a few injuries , the 2nd line carried us for a few more games but we still hadnt figured out how to score shots or not, players began to get the snakebitten look in their eyes and body language teamwide. Then we benched a d-man who didnt fit into the transitional style naturally and had difficulty adjusting to his system role, then we benched a bottom 6 guy who is our most decorated veteran leader all in the hopes that this would solve our scoring issues. And alas we hammer a team for 55 mins and then lose two points because we couldnt score a goal or two to bail out the man who has been bailing the team out all year long. Even with a respectable volume of shots– key word being volume not volume of system generated shots– this is not a trick question but does Ralph know the difference no disrespect intended.

That is what I see, and to me Ralph is slowly but surely following the NewAge Hockey System template one very long and painful step at a time , he is watching the team evolveing and it is forcing him to evolve as well, the total package of data Krueger needs to catch up to and eclipse this nuclear evolution is available for him immediatly if he simply googles moma2s NewAge Hockey System. His team is taking him directly to water, now lets see what he does.

We are only a few very minor adjustment away from dialing our offense in in a massive way, we are executing two of the three core value components that we need to focus on in a consistant and dominant fashion, oddly the most difficult ones we have already mastered. We have a huge communication gap or more accurately chasm that no one wants to discuss, this puts a lot of pressure on Ralph, he is pretty busy being a professional NHL coach so even though he is also a pro communicator he needs a third party perspective to keep himself honest and integrity driven.

We need the NewAge Hockey System immediatly because it contains the exact adjustment we need to make to initiate our offense at 100% energy in one game, in one practice scrimmage Ralph can verify the adjustments. We are in a very precarious situation right now because there is a great risk of Ralph overadjusting and knocking our excellent work awry, we have actually completed the most difficult 75% of executing both Ralphs system and the NHS which are very very similar as well but we are missing the final adjustment and it is a communication issue that ralph is missing totally. Ralphs system is not the NewAge Hockey System or he would have identified and adjusted to this already by proxy of core value components of the NHS, he wouldnt have been permitted to get into this position using the NHS.

We just played an excellent game, our last 6 games have really evolved wonderfully for us, now we need to stop-drop-and roll, then take stock of our progress from a more pragmatic winners perspective. We have accomplished a great deal already and are lucky that all of our young guys have matured on schedule since last year. We are executing 75% of exactly what we need right now, we are in a very positive position, however we are out of time and we need to make some terminal adjustments in the next ten games or its probably lights out.

Those adjustments are out there waiting for Ralph and the creator of the NHS is an Oilers fan and catalysed the system itself out of the Dynasty Oilers PP and Wayne Gretzkys work and perspective. The NewAge Hockey System was tailormade for the Oilers. All I can say is Tactical |Shooting Program and that Freddy Chabot should not be picking shootout shooters, not at all, in the NHS he wouldnt be allowed to have that degree of input in such a core area because the system itself would be dictating game by game who was best to take those shots based on dynamic realtime results not statistics, think about that because it is the real difference between what Ralph is trying to do and what the NHS will teach him to do. This is a dynamic communication issue, Ralph and his support staff dont have enough professional help manifesting and utilising Intuative Dynamic analysis and it is costing them a tremendous amount of energy and resources and consequently points in the standings.

Statistically catalysed analysis is sinking our ship, we are overdosing on Las Vegas bookie type data, and we need an antidote soon or we will go terminal and lose the season. The antidote is Intuative Dynamic Analysis and we dont have until next year to scrub it up through online contests, so when are the Oilers going to diagnose this terminal weakness how many symptoms do they need to see become manifest before they can make an accurate call and acess then apply a remedy.

I think we have an excellent Head Coach who is very lucky that there is a system available to him that is nearly identical to his own personal brand of Hockey which happens to posess the offensive core values he now requires, and I think a professional communicator who is also an NHL coach would recognise the need to reach out to all data sources both conventional and unconventional when a remedy was required for his system. Just google it, or start a thread asking for it. I am pretty sure it wouldnt cost any more dollars than DarkHorse is costing the team.

The man can sure skate and occasionally score but if Hemsky keeps up with his drive byes, there will be NOBODY willing to take him in a trade. I can imagine the thoughts of a coach like Hitchcock or Tortorella if their GMs traded for him. Rangers already bench Gaborik for his lack of fortitude. Just a bit of contact…is that too much to ask?